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Monthly Archives: March 2012

Before the internet words were created by naming things by piecing words together. The pineapple for instance was named by Christopher Columbus because it looked like a pine cone and apple because it is a “generic term for fruit”. As mentioned in the article “As technology evolved, new devices have often been named(at least temporarily) by familiar words and concepts.” Doing this made communication between people become easier to comprehend.

Now the internet has created several languages in subcultures or magnified some. Also today even the basic words/sayings have become even more simple in acronyms.

lol = Laugh out loud

btw= By the way

brb = Be right back

imho=In my humble opinion

omg=Oh my god/gosh

Some of these acronyms have even been recently added to the dictionary! Not long ago the internet came into existence, but it is changing our communication habits everyday. Sending letters through the mail is rare today ever since we started using e-mails. E-mailing is faster, quick, and simple. It cuts the cost in buying stamps, paper, and saves time. Twitter lets you tweet and reply instantly from your phone through text. Facebook allows users to send video messages instead of a typed message or post a video as a comment on their wall.

Have you ever realized we now tell people to facebook someone or tweet them? Tweeting comes in handy when you don’t have someones number because you can just send a tweet through text and the receiver will be able to get the message through their phone. Social network sites now have instant messengers built in making it even more simple to contact people. Another new thing that’s happening is sending invitations online to parties or organization groups. You do not have buy invitations or mail them to people because now you can just set up an event with the info on facebook and invite everyone. Organizations in school keep in contact by setting up groups on facebook so everyone can keep updated with what’s going on. It’s weird how we no longer actually “talk” to people face to face or with our voices.

Obviously technology is taking communication to a new platform. It’s only going to keep on advancing from here. Maybe one day we’ll be able to communicate with our minds.

In the article “Becoming Screen Illiterate” by Kevin Kelly discusses how media and technology is shaping human culture. Before advanced technology people would write by hand with ink, but then Gutenberg invented the printing press making books easier to print leading. Books were a new form of entertainment till suddenly we moved into film production. As time went by technology advanced more changing our culture with it.

Presently we watch everything on a “screen” now. Digital technology is found everywhere such as on a ATM, self-check out, digital advertisements in the mall, or even buying movie tickets outside the theater. Along with the advancements came along easier alterations to digital media. Now instead of copying and pasting from articles we can now copy and paste film clips into a editing software.

The article uses anime fans as an example. On youtube you can find an abundant amount of edited anime music videos or voice overs fans made. There is a “Iron Editor” challenge where as mentioned the “Iron Editor must remix videos in real time in front of an audience while competing with other editors to demonstrate superior visual literacy. The best editors can remix video as fast as you might type.” There is a online subculture that focuses on editing anime music videos for fun and compete on speed.

Editing/Remixing videos has become a hobby or sport for many people. It can be done easily at home as on your computer. Everyone can be their own director and upload videos on a sharing website such as youtube.

Technology has been molding our culture allowing us to explore digital media. It has become part of our daily lives. Everyday TV screens appear everywhere in cars, stores, school, and etc. We can not run away from it. No longer do we play with text, but alter digital images or film clips for fun. We never know what will be the next thing in technology we’ll explore.